The present invention relates to an apparatus for storing information storage mediums, such as video discs into casings.
Video discs containing both video and audio information at a high density are in the form of a flat circular plate made of vinyl chloride which is rendered electrically conductive by being mixed with 5% to 30% by weight of carbon. The video disc has on each of its surfaces a spiral track containing a series of depressions or pits written by frequency-modulated signals, with adjacent track convolutions or turns being closely spaced at a pitch of 1.35 .mu.m. The information can be read out of the spiral track by picking up variations in electrostatic capacity produced between the pits and a diamond pickup needle having a metal film electrode which traces the spiral track as the disc rotates at a high speed.
When the video disc is smeared with dust or oily finger dirt, reproduced signals picked up from such video disc are adversely affected by such deposits on the video disc. To protect video discs against deposition of dust or foreign matter and possible damage, the video discs are normally stored in protective casings so that the operator cannot touch the video discs under normal usage such as when loading the video disc into a video disc player.
Protective disc casings are composed of a sleeve for containing a video disc and a lid plate inserted in the sleeve to retain the video disc therein. For reproduction of the video disc, the casing is inserted through a slot into a video disc player until the casing reaches a pickup positon therein, and the sleeve is pulled out to leave the lid plate and the video disc in the video disc player. Loading the video disc into the video disc player without any chance of the disc surface getting touched by an operator's fingers is highly desirable, to keep the best quality of video discs as they are pressed in view of rough usage expected of video discs which are supposed to find more users than ordinary audio discs. With video discs being capable of being loaded into video disc players through their front panel, the video disc player can have all of its control switches and pushbuttons on the front panel for ready access by the operator. The video disc players can be designed such that they can be mounted on a rack or other objects may be put on the players. Therefore, the video disc players can have more leeway in the availability of different designs and can be rendered more practical in usage.